Children: Adorable environmental disasters

On March 25, 2012 my wife Kristin and I made a lifestyle choice, which, by all accounts, will have the most egregious environmental impact of our lives. We gave birth to a child.

Naturally, we were thrilled at this truly wondrous event. As any parent will tell you, having a baby is among the greatest joys one can know. Yet at the same time, my green conscience questioned me: What impact will my child have on the Earth?

It’s hard to argue with the numbers. Despite all the effort Kristin and I put into being good upstanding environmental citizens–– living in an energy-efficient home, raising some of our own food, recycling–– the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of our child will overshadow by 20 times all of our green do-gooder acts, concludes a 2009 Oregon State University study.

In the United States, the long-term environmental impact of each new baby will be at least five times that of a child born in China. The average American consumes over 25 times more resources than the average person from a developing country. Put another way, parents in a developing country would need to have 25 children before causing the same environmental impact as the single child we brought into the world – a sobering statistic.

Our child’s environmental impact actually began well before he emerged from the womb, as we drove weekly to doctors across our region, in Winchester, VA, Bethesda, MD, and beyond. Kristin and I joked at one point about naming our son “Carbon Footprint Feldman." In the end, we simply called him JJ–– at least conserving letters of the alphabet!

JJ may indeed grow up to be yet another typical American consumer: wasteful of energy, food, and water, a buyer of “stuff” that contributes to the depletion of natural resources and global pollution. But is his path predestined? Do other possibilities exist?

Think back a decade. What was the state of our green economy then? The renewable energy boom had only just started, and the first Toyota Prius hybrids had just been released for U.S. sale. The local food movement was just gaining traction, and the green product universe existing today had not yet experienced its Big Bang.

Now rooftop solar panels and electric vehicles are almost commonplace. Locally-grown food is readily available. Products of various shades of green line the shelves at Walmart and Home Depot. We have a long way yet to go, yes, but who knows what the next decade may bring.

JJ’s world could see green advances beyond imagining: a clean limitless energy source, technologies that assure abundant and healthy food and water, or a fully closed cradle-to-grave loop for the production, use, and repurposing of products.

The truth is, we cannot begin to know. So what’s a green-minded parent to do?

Kristin and I hold strong environmental values, and it is our intent to model them for our child in the hope that he adopts them in his own actions and choices.

We will raise our child to appreciate and revel in the wonder of this place we call home. We will try to instill in him a respect for what we have and how precious it is. We will try to teach him that every choice comes with consequence. We will do our best, and hope that JJ becomes a citizen of the Earth who walks upon her with the lightest of footsteps.

Bathed in our green light, could our son come to lead a life that somehow balances the environmental consequences of his birth? The hopeful part of me clings to “perhaps” while the realist part of me whispers, “likely not.”

As parents, perhaps the best we can do–– the best any parent can do–– is prepare our child to live mindfully, purposefully, and respectfully. Perhaps that’s our greatest green legacy.

53 comments

Remember, he runs a "green building consulting firm", so this is part of his work outlook as well.

I did laugh at his statement, "rooftop solar panels and electric vehicles are almost common place", Solar panels are far from common (though I'd like one). Electric cars are only common if you count hybrid's. Pure electric is rare and remember, electricity has to come from somewhere as well.

Ice Dogg February 21st, 2013 | 12:30pm

Lives in WVa. Must be popular with the 'We are friends of Coal" crowd.

Liberalace February 21st, 2013 | 12:41pm

Just go to paragraph 6 to see this chronic bedwetter's elitist slant against the "American consumer." How did such tripe make its way down I-81 from Berkeley County, WV? This couple showed their selfishness by having a child; if they are so worried about sustainability, why didn't they move to China where they could have their allotted one-only child and it would wreck our precious planet at 1/5th the rate of our evil children in this wasteful society?

Or they could move to Mexico City or Sao Paolo and enjoy the fresh air down there.

When I read articles like this, I quickly understand how Al Gore earned all those millions to afford a 10,000 square foot mansion and fly around on private jets.

P.S.: Is Alexander the wife's middle name or last name?

R.I.P.: Rachel Carson (good riddance)

discoduck February 21st, 2013 | 1:42pm

Typical. Talk the talk and even walk the walk until something directly puts you or a loved one in conflict with what you are preaching. Then reality sets in.

This almost sounds like you are asking for permission or feel guilty for visiting the doctor or buying some plastic toys for your new child.

Go ahead Jeff. Turn on that tv. Fire up that Escalade and zoom to the doctor's office. We will forgive you as long as you remember that not everyone can bare the burden of someone elses dream of a perfect world. It is not that we do not care it may be because we want what we think is best for OUR loved ones in the present time instead of when we are long gone.

Marco Esquandolas February 21st, 2013 | 2:29pm

What about the sight pollution related to ugly children?

Dawg February 21st, 2013 | 2:35pm

Remember Zero Population Growth? They made a lot of sense. Having children is environmentally irresponsible, and I wish more couples would limit their spawn to one. Unfortunately, the urge to procreate seems to override common sense.

Bill Marshall February 21st, 2013 | 2:49pm

I think that the people of the United States should accept responsibility for the havoc they have wreaked for creating medicines and inventions that allow people to live longer and healthier. It is those horrid vaccines and food drops that is causing this population explosion. It is our interference in genocide ridden countries and our building wells and teaching them agriculture that is surely doomng the planet.

Either that or we can rejoice in the fact that black bears and polar bears will be able to once again mate and create brown bears so the the great bear racial divide will be conquered due to our warming of the northern hemisphere.

mother earth is changing weather patterns and while we may be able to influence it slightly a better task would be to plan for it and buy some snow cover land in canada to grow corn on in a few decades.

Every drop of oil will be harvested either by us or the chinese.... and I would dare to say that the comparison between the carbon footprint of a child born in china today to a middle class family compared to an american babies is not 25 to 1 in fact theres may be worse since they are burning coal that they buy from us that is illegal to burn here because of our emission requirements. ....

Bill Marshall February 21st, 2013 | 2:51pm

I think that the people of the United States should accept responsibility for the havoc they have wreaked for creating medicines and inventions that allow people to live longer and healthier. It is those horrid vaccines and food drops that is causing this population explosion. It is our interference in genocide ridden countries and our building wells and teaching them agriculture that is surely doomng the planet.

Either that or we can rejoice in the fact that black bears and polar bears will be able to once again mate and create brown bears so the the great bear racial divide will be conquered due to our warming of the northern hemisphere.

mother earth is changing weather patterns and while we may be able to influence it slightly a better task would be to plan for it and buy some snow cover land in canada to grow corn on in a few decades.

Every drop of oil will be harvested either by us or the chinese.... and I would dare to say that the comparison between the carbon footprint of a child born in china today to a middle class family compared to an american babies is not 25 to 1 in fact theres may be worse since they are burning coal that they buy from us that is illegal to burn here because of our emission requirements. ....

Let your child grow up guilt free and enjoy the hard labor of his forefathers. There is more to life than wondering if the toilet paper you use will kill a fish.

Seannie O' The Hills February 21st, 2013 | 3:04pm

This political ploy used to win elections has become a mental illness for many.
No other way to describe it, really. None of these self proclaimed scientists can even tell us why there was a dramatic global warming after 1850, but naturally they feel empowered to order the rest of us to accept their new religion.

sigh.. That poor little kid.. I think I know what happens now when his brother or sister are conceived.. Out will come the knives.

Seannie O' The Hills February 21st, 2013 | 3:19pm

"Though it's hard to believe today, large Virginia rivers like the Rappahannock used to freeze over entirely during the cold winters of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Chesapeake Bay would also have ice floes that were a hazard to navigation. Places like Sharps (Richmond County) that were dependent on steamboats for trade and mail would often be stuck for weeks without shipments or postal service from Baltimore. Road improvements and the building of the Downing Bridge in 1927 (now carrying US 360), helped alleviate dependence on the river and bay for transportation - and ultimately factored into the demise of the steamboat."

"Our child’s environmental impact actually began well before he emerged from the womb"

The single momentary blip of reality featured in the entire article.

You see? These folks who claim they are such great people yet are perfectly OK with over 3,000 killings a day in America don't even believe themselves when it comes to their victims. So there is no reason whatsoever to believe them when they discuss another topic and flip their own belief 180 degrees.

Barbara Myer February 21st, 2013 | 8:06pm

Most of these commenters need to go hang out with Ken Cuccinnelli. My depression-surviving grandmothers taught me to grow food, compost, & consume moderately. I'm still waiting for Lowes to offer me a solar energy starter kit as a DIY project. Insanely overdue. ZPG influenced me decades ago & I have one (biological) child. I've understood for a long time that the size of the next generation has big impacts & have conversed (argued) with a sister who had three children about that choice & its consequences for the planet: her argument was that she would have useful children: they're in their 20's now & her argument is actually holding up. More can be done with less: the republicans have become insane on this topic & compel me to underwrite the Duggers & their 19 (20?) children through tax deductions & tax credits.

This article is actually CONSERVATIVE. We just don't recognize that anymore because today's conservative = reactionary. It's not the 1950s anymore, folks. We know better & if you're not doing better, you've drunk some very bad koolaid.

WhoaNelly February 21st, 2013 | 8:43pm

So what happens when you have twins of triplets? Barbara...you get the “one child” responsibility button. Heaven forbid anything happen to your "one" child, you would be all alone. Speaking of all alone, is how it must feel with no brothers or sisters.
Having one child is selfish…pure and simple.

Bill Marshall February 22nd, 2013 | 9:41am

The only people having less people are those who can afford more than one child which is partly why there is a widening gap between upper and lower classes.

The demoghaphics of america from an economic point of view are that tax consumers are populating at a rate 4-1 over tax payers.

So extrapolating that out we are REALLY screwed in about 50 years unless the offspring of those consuming taxes step up to the plate and make something of themselves. Of course if we continue to expand "entitlments" and taxing success there will be no reason for them to do so.

Sparky February 22nd, 2013 | 11:35am

I love the comments- I am heartened that there are so many others in C-ville with the common sense to know BS when they read it. I wish these hippies wouldn't reproduce at all.

Irony of ironies- they seek to shove their new enviro-religion down our throats via legislation and narcissistic columns, but if I deign to talk about true "inconvenient truths," such as 3,000 innocent babies aborted daily, I'm the reactionary religious nut.

"Welcome to America 180"
- Dennis Miller

Dawg February 22nd, 2013 | 11:49am

WhoaNelly, the sophistication of your argument is a thing of beauty. I've never heard anyone put it quite that way before.

salz February 22nd, 2013 | 1:54pm

This writer is simply facing the difficult question that sooner than we think the entire world must address. How many of us can consume how much of the planet's resources and the planet continue to support life?

Please consider checking out the local group, Advocates for a Sustainable Albemarle, and note that biocapacity research indicates that for the 144,000 of us to live solely on the resources available in Albemarle County, our landmass would have to expand 3.7 times.

World human population is about 6 billion now and in the next 35 years another 2.5 billion are expected to be added. When my daughter was born in 1980, there were 4.4 billion humans on this planet.

Perhaps the best movie about this concept is Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat."

TheDude February 22nd, 2013 | 2:12pm

Why would we want to consider living solely on the resources available in Albemarle County?

Dawg February 22nd, 2013 | 2:40pm

Humanity is a cancer on the earth. The ignorance, arrogance, and selfishness in these comments is astounding.

Dawg February 22nd, 2013 | 2:40pm

Humanity is a cancer on the earth. The ignorance, arrogance, and selfishness in these comments are astounding.

Dolemite February 22nd, 2013 | 3:00pm

Thinking about how we sustain ourselves is a good exercise. 200 years ago I think it's safe to say that the population of Albemarle lived entirely off of its own food production. Ever look at all the people around you on the highways & parking lots and wonder what would happen if Archer Daniels Midland let loose the "Andromeda Grain" and suddenly there was no agribusiness food to eat? (Not to start the AR15 debate all over again...) I think the appropriate movie would be On The Road, based on the Cormac McCarthy novel; not pretty.

This is a really interesting and paradoxical discussion point because, as Barbara Myer rightly points out, it's conservative to be concerned with overspending one's resources at home and in the aggregate. It's perfectly analogous to all the "don't spend what you ain't got" logic that the right leaning folks advocate (not that the Republicans in office live that but that's another AR15 moment). And it's even Biblical, going into both the economic and cultural heart of the right, as the Bible says we're stewards of the land.

But concern with the earth itself as an end apart from human utility is hearing a tree fall in the woods when on one is there. Aside from the fact that we live on this dust mote, it's just another particle in the void, and it doesn't make a hill of beans if it implodes. If you want to save the earth, for yourself and others then Bill Marshall is on the mark (and what a funny post that was, and no typo's Bill are you wearing glasses now or just refraining from the sauce until cocktail hour?). We should be concerned about efforts to bring other cultures to the same consumption power that we have, especially when they're four generations away from Mother Jones hand-wringing about consumption. Having your own child or three isn't anything more than a symbolic question until the bigger stuff gets sorted.

TheDude February 22nd, 2013 | 3:27pm

Dolemite -- you make a lot of good points, but NYC isn't at all self sustaining, but from what I've heard, the average New Yorker is on the lower spectrum of carbon footprint.

Seannie O' The Hills February 23rd, 2013 | 12:54am

It really drives them completely bananas when you educate them about how we had a dramatic global warming in the early1800's - and remind them that they are totally clueless as to why it happened. I had a ball with 6 UVA Enviro Science grad students/TA's with this 2 years ago on the corner.. Left them in a circle yelling at each other..

Even here, people probably just learned that Virginia rivers used to regularly freeze over. But you think for one second that they will take a step back from their hypothesis/religion given some facts? Not a chance.. It's a cult. It is not a serious group of people who should ever be taken seriously.

not buyin' it February 23rd, 2013 | 1:37am

"It's a cult. It is not a serious group of people who should ever be taken seriously."

You mean like Catholicism Seannie?

The Cruncher February 23rd, 2013 | 10:42am

Another self centered lefty who preaches one thing and practices another, and thinks some flowery essay makes it all right.

Dawg February 23rd, 2013 | 12:32pm

Gee, Seannie, I had no idea that you were a climate scientist in addition to being Assistant Chief Blowhard for the Hook comments (Bill Marshall is Blowhard-in-Chief).

Seannie O' The Hills February 23rd, 2013 | 3:19pm

As we can see yet again - and as always - the cult never, ever has any comeback other than diversion, distraction, and denial..

"Remember when “a major cooling of the climate” was “widely considered inevitable” (New York Times, May 21, 1975) with “extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation” (Science magazine, Dec. 10, 1976) which must “stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery” (International Wildlife, July 1975)? Remember reports that “the world’s climatologists are agreed” that we must “prepare for the next ice age” (Science Digest, February 1973)? Armadillos were leaving Nebraska, heading south, and heat-loving snails were scampering southward from European forests (Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 27, 1974). Newsweek (April 28, 1975) said meteorologists were “almost unanimous” that cooling would “reduce agricultural productivity.”

George Will.

Dawg February 23rd, 2013 | 4:14pm

That's the thing about science, Sean--the process requires that scientists continually test hypotheses, of which global cooling was one. That hypothesis has been discarded because the evidence overwhelmingly supports the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis. We could see long-term global cooling if the polar ice caps melt and inject too much freshwater into the oceans, but that is some time off. Regardless of your "belief" in climate change, society can only benefit from looking beyond power sources that inject additional CO2 and other pollutants into the atmosphere. If you think we can continue to rely on oil and coal, you are merely a useful idiot for the extractive industries.

The Cruncher February 23rd, 2013 | 4:17pm

Seannie, we both know "climate change" is a faux religion for society hating humanist lefties, but George Will is a horrible example as a counterpoint, being that he has sacrificed all integrity for a place in the neocon ranks. Not to be too judgmental but there are way better and more factual sources.

You may be interested in http://climateaudit.org/ actually. Unfortunately I'm not intelligent enough to understand the finer points in this gentleman's work, and for certain no liberal will even understand the polysyllabic words, but I'd recommend it as a better source.

cvillemom February 23rd, 2013 | 10:24pm

"Think back a decade..... The local food movement was just gaining traction..."

I always get a laugh out of comments like that, because these new age eco-hippies all seem to believe that it was their generation that invented the concept of consuming produce that didn't travel 500+ miles on a truck. Rural folks of course, have subscribed to the " local food movement " for generations. It's called gardening.
And of course what is even more comical is that all these proud locavores are the same ones you see at Whole Foods and Market Fresh, loading their baskets with grapes from Chile, melons from Mexico, and asparagus from Peru, because they believe that everything has to be certified organic or it isn't fit for human consumption.

Personally, I am growing tired of all the articles that feature self-righteous hypocrits trying to tell us how they are better people than the rest of us now that they have had their epiphany and have changed their evil ways, and we should follow their lead. If you think that you are now a more responsible citizen of the earth, I am happy for you. But there happen to be many people who have been good stewards of the planet since long before you were born. They just didn't need to toot their own horn about it.

Seannie O' The Hills February 24th, 2013 | 1:36am

It's not just that they can't explain why previous global warmings (and coolings) happened.
It's not just that they can't explain why some parts of the planet are actually getting colder while ours is warming recently.
It's not just that this is the latest in a series of issues cooked up by political activists getting hysterical about impending doom wherein our only hope for survival is to vote democratic (see: nuclear freeze movement, acid rain, the China Syndrome, Bush restarting the crusades - take your pick).

Even IF we had none of the history of the Sky is Falling Movement, nor the political party that is always our only hope for survival - we'd still be left with their utter hypocrisy and double standards in their own personal lives. Does anyone seriously think for one moment that these academics, hippies, and social engineering leftists are ever going to give up even their COFFEE? Imagine, for a moment, the global carbon footprint of coffee - from a tree in Africa or South America, transported, roasted, transported again, water heated, filters, dairy, sugar.. How about their jetset travel plans every year? Their French wine, Scottish whiskey, and Finnish vodka at all the high end restaurants around here? How about all the marijuana and/or cocaine smuggled in from South of the border? How about all the horrible fuel being burned in Bush's horrible planes and drones killing people all over the world? Remember when those were war crimes? Now they're, well, fine with all of it so long as their hero is at the helm.

Seriously, if these folks didn't have double standards - they'd have no standards at all. You can - really - sit in a coffee shop in Charlottesville and watch as a group of people sit at a table and plot how to force other people to be more "sustainable" and use less energy at the very same time that they have their laptops, ipads, and iphones plugged into every available socket, are drinking coffee from Kenya, spring water from France - and making their Winter plane reservations to the Caribbean..

Amanda February 24th, 2013 | 5:44pm

If you want to watch a great lesson in hypocrisy, you need look no further than tonight's Oscar telecast.

All the multi-millionaires who made their fortunes through capitalism DECRY capitalism. And watch all the ardent, preachy "environmentalists" pull up to the ceremonies individually in their gas-guzzling limos.

Not even carpooling...LOL!

Jack February 25th, 2013 | 12:41pm

The Feldman OpEd piece supports its arguments with evidence and logic. Notice how the opponents' comments rely on name-calling and weak sarcasm.

ENVIRONMENTAL issues are important in discussions of population growth in our Charlottesville/Albemarle community, but so, too, are ECONOMIC issues. ASAP recently completed an analysis of the fiscal costs and benefits of growth, and found that for every $1 generated in revenue from all sources, Albemarle County incurred $1.24 in costs and Charlottesville $1.17 (for schools, police, and other public services and infrastructure needs). A summary is of the study is at www.asapnow.org/2013%20Executive%20Summary%20Fiscal%20Costs%20of%20Growt... .

Fiscal conservatives, if they're objective, should acknowledge that population growth does NOT pay for itself (even when the environmental costs are ignored). Additional residents to our community--whether added by birth or by moving here--do not generate sufficient government revenues to pay for the public services they require.

It seems to me that limiting growth to an optimal sustainable size would be a responsible conservative position.

Dawg February 25th, 2013 | 1:02pm

What Jack said! "Fiscal conservatives" are anything but reality based.

Seannie O' The Hills February 25th, 2013 | 4:06pm

The realities that the modern day Eugenicists ignore:

1) Their war against reproduction always must include abortion (they would never say anything bad about having unlimited sex with unlimited people). That, in turn, has dramatically raised our preterm birth rate - which has doubled since 1970 - so these folks are responsible for a LOT of children with birth defects and developmental disabilities such as cerebral palsy. These countless children who avoided their knives turn out to be EXPENSIVE for any society given their very health health care needs and their relative inability to be productive economically.

2) Their social engineering has killed 55 million younger people over the past 40 years, so now we have a vast gap in younger populations paying into Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and so on. Other countries who embraced beheadings around the same time are now faced with the same aging populations and fiscal disaster as people live longer and there are millions fewer younger folks to pay into the public accounts they are drawing from. If these Eugenicists knew anything about history - or at least would admit to it - they would remind us here that our country has always enjoyed it's most prosperous periods of economic growth and rising standards of living during times of population INCREASES and high birth rates. As usual, the data and the record is exactly the opposite of what they want you to believe.

3) These folks have a long and consistent record of being wrong. They lost Simon-Ehrlich bet by a laughable margin, All their hysterical predictions of mass starvation and doom had a hidden political agenda then also, and they were left to explain "we survived and thrived...what went wrong with the damn "Population Bomb?!"

4) Who wants to bet that every single person commenting here disagreeing with me drinks coffee? I'll be nice and not throw in marijuana and cocaine from Colombia (whoops..)

5) Charlottesville has no fiscal problems thanks to that $5 billion endowed indoctrination center with the private militia on the West side of town, NGIC, Sperry, and so on..And if indeed there is a negative payoff in public funds, at least part of that is due to it becoming a magnet for overweight, drug addicted, "homeless" people with mobile phones and pets who can enjoy three square meals a day and even new luxury apartments for "free." Why bother to work for a living and pay taxes? This is the Obama era!

WhoaNelly February 25th, 2013 | 4:27pm

Population Control?
A local group called ASAP (Advocates for a Sustainable Albemarle Population) are operating openly in our community, financed in part by another foundation in Pittsburg called the Colcom Foundation (read their mission statement, it’s a sobering thought). They are pushing population control though limiting growth in our community, among other things. They believe that the population in our area could already be unsustainable. They see a certain number of people in our area to be optimal for our environment, and champion the idea of capping population growth to achieve this lofty goal. There have been groups like this one in America and abroad since the turn of the last century. Sounds great until you start asking questions, questions like what happens to the building industry when we reach this groups perceived limit on buildings and houses? What happens to all of the industries that support the building industry in our community and the livelyhoods of those employed in these industries? Who are the lucky ones this group will choose to be a part of their sustainable communities?
The American eugenics movement, that for over 100 years in America sterilized over 100,000 people through government programs, championed the same cause, a population that was sustainable to our environment. This early movement went underground when the eugenics movement in Nazi Germany (that shared information with America until the war) was exposed to the world as atrocious. It continues today in America under the guise of environmental movements, The Sierra Club and their “bird of a feather” Planned Parenthood and many others… ASAP? These groups keep poping up under different names, but their agenda has not changed. In 1974, Federal District Court Judge Gerhard Gesell estimated that “over the last few years” between 100,000 and 150,000 low-income persons were sterilized under federally funded programs. Judge Gesell observed that “the dividing line between family planning and eugenics was murky”. How does a group of people get so full of themselves that they think they are entitled to something as basic as housing, or life itself, and others are not?
Some of my most important questions to the people involved in these foundations are…How do you intend to reduce our population? After you have effectively shut down progress, what’s next? Will having more than two children in this future society be looked down upon? In many circles today it already is. These movements have gotten their tentacles into state legislations around the country. I urge any who read this to research “eugenics in America” and give some deep thought to the ramifications of some people’s idea of a sustained community.

Dawg February 25th, 2013 | 4:54pm

No one is talking eugenics, just changing the attitude that having a zillion spawn is a good in itself. People are hard on this planet, and resources are finite.

WhoaNelly February 25th, 2013 | 4:58pm

Ignorance is bliss Dawg....

Kenny Blankenship February 25th, 2013 | 4:59pm

Everytime I scroll through one of these comment threads and see the postings by the chronics (seannie, liberalace, bill m, et al), I imagine how the worst form of social punishmnt would be to get stuck in an elevator with them, or cornered at a cocktail party by them, or seated in a plane next to them. Worse than the Jehovah's Witnesses on a Saturday morning after a tough night.

Dawg February 25th, 2013 | 5:16pm

@WhoaNelly, you would know. . .

Dawg February 25th, 2013 | 5:19pm

@KennyB, my stepfather was just like the Chronics--a steady diet of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh in his declining years made rational conversation about current events impossible. It was sad.

cvillemom February 25th, 2013 | 7:19pm

But one of the biggest problems with advocating zero population growth is the demographics of the audience who is listening. Many of the welfare crowd think it is desirable to have baby after baby because that will increase the size of the monthly check. Meanwhile, the educated and employed embrace the idea of having families that are manageable in size, aka only have a child if you can afford to care for it. The new world order will be more and more people who are dependent on government handouts for housing and food, while the working class will pay higher taxes to support them, and with falling net income, continue limiting the size of the family.
If you want to preach Zero Population Growth, preach it to the welfare crowd and make a real difference on this earth.

Marching Morons February 25th, 2013 | 8:25pm

OK. Go back to 1951 and read "The Marching Morons". Then fast forward to 1963 and catch up with Norman Borlaug. Then catch up with 2013. Would you? Please? Then comment in context. These people, though late to the party, didn't enjoy parents/grandparents who taught them to the rudimentary skills; they had to 'rediscover' them. and they're thinking about them and commenting about them. Say 'thank you' and move on. Less is more: to personal economy, to detriment to the environment, and to the next generatiion. They're asking the questions. What's the excuse of those between who didn't?

Liberalace February 26th, 2013 | 11:07am

@Kenny...I do not use elevators; I use stairways. Elevators use electricity, which increases our carbon footprint. Using steps keeps me in shape so I can live a long life, collect lots of social security, use up lots of Medicare and, perhaps, become a subject of a government panel who will decide whether my ailments are worth wasting government funds to treat me in my elder years.
@Dawg...are you trying to tell me Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz are the rational to Fox and Limbaugh's irrational?

Fact is, this essay was the crystallization of current, silly liberalism. Guilt for driving from Berkeley County all the way down I-81 to Winchester because his car is emitting CO? Then think this through chap: live closer to Winchester. Again, just read paragraph six for Feldman's view of America and its people.

R.I.P.: Al Gore's mind

The Cruncher February 26th, 2013 | 9:23pm

Dawg - Congratulations on leading the charge against overpopulation by ensuring that you will never reproduce. For a lefty you at least practice what you preach, even if it's not intentional.

Dawg February 26th, 2013 | 9:38pm

@Liberalace, Rachel and Ed are way more rational than Fox and Limbaugh.
@Cruncher, my decision not to reproduce is absolutely intentional, and it's not for lack of offers.

You people who see the earth as your personal ashtray should be ashamed.

WhoaNelly February 26th, 2013 | 10:54pm

Lol..Dawg...offers? as in ..."will you mate with me?"

The Cruncher February 27th, 2013 | 9:55am

Haha only someone who couldn't get laid with a Lamborghini and a wallet full of benjamins would ever say "not for lack of offers." Keep on being a used doormat for angry leftist women, maybe some decade it'll mean scoring! You never know!

Dawg February 27th, 2013 | 10:13am

HAHAHA you two are funny. .

Liberalace February 27th, 2013 | 1:58pm

@Dawg...Thanks for the confirmation. That's all I need to know.

"You people who see earth as your personal ashtray should be ashamed." For example, Rachel Maddow living in Manhattan all week and driving three hours every Friday to her home in Massachusetts, then returning to NYC Sunday to do her show? Gosh, if the writer of this article has guilt about going from Berkeley County WV to Winchester, how guilty does Maddow feel about her unnecessary and excessive use of carbon fuels?

But I guess that's his--oops, sorry, her--choice.

R.I.P.: The Great Society

Dawg February 27th, 2013 | 2:07pm

My guess is that Rachel doesn't use her own car in Manhattan. Likely the studio picks her up (standard in the industry) or she takes a cab. At least she is not driving 3 hours every day like the people in NoVA do. People in Manhattan have relatively small carbon footprints, in general.